Wind Energy Could Power China, Study Finds

Wind power alone could provide
electricity for all of China if the country overhauls its rural grids
and raises the subsidy for wind energy, a new study finds.

China has rapidly become a global
leader in wind energy and now ranks
fourth in the world in installed capacity. But
coal-fired power plants continue to supply most of the country's
rising electricity needs - a development path that scientists predict
will lead to dangerous levels of climate change.

New models of China's wind resources
suggest that coal is not the only cost-effective energy option for
the country. The winds blowing in China are powerful enough to
generate low-carbon electricity that eliminates "much, if not all"
of the power sector's future greenhouse gas emissions, according to
researchers from Harvard University and Beijing's Tsinghua
University.

"We are trying to cut into the
current defined demand for new electricity generation in China, which
is roughly a gigawatt (GW) a week - or an enormous 50 GW per year,"
said Michael McElroy, lead author of the study published in the
current issue of Science,in
a statement. "China is bringing on several
coal-fired power plants a week. By publicizing the opportunity for a
different way to go we will hope to have a positive influence."

As China's demand for electricity
increases an estimated 10 percent each year, the country is projected
to need an additional 800 GW of coal-generated electricity during the
next 20 years. With current wind energy payments of 0.4 RMB
(US$0.059) per kilowatt-hour, wind energy could displace 23 percent
of coal-generated electricity. If so, China would eliminate as much
as 0.62 gigatons of annual carbon dioxide emissions, or 9.4 percent
of the country's current annual emissions, the study said.

Wind energy could supply all of China's
2030 electricity demands, however, if wind contract prices were
increased to 0.516 RMB (US $0.076) per kilowatt-hour, the study said.

"To determine the viability of
wind-based energy for China, we established a location-based economic
model, incorporating the bidding process, and calculated the energy
cost based on geography," said study co-author Xi Lu, a Harvard
graduate student.

Rather than increase carbon dioxide
emissions by 3.5 gigatons each year through 2030, as current policies
would allow, the analysis determined that wind energy could replace
640 GW of coal-fired power. The switch would reduce emissions by 30
percent and require an investment of some 6 trillion RMB (US$900
billion).

"This is a large but not unreasonable
investment, given the present size of the Chinese economy and the
scale of the investments in both generating capacity and the grid
infrastructure that will be required...to accommodate anticipated
future growth in power demand," the authors wrote.

Extensive regions of northern and
western China hold particularly large potential for wind energy,
specifically the provinces of Inner Mongolia, Xinjiang, Gansu, and
Tibet.

But the windiest areas are sparsely
populated regions where electricity demands are low. High voltage
transmissions lines are needed to connect these areas with
electricity consumers in rapidly growing eastern China.

Meanwhile, existing wind farms are
struggling to incorporate into the grid. Chinese law gives renewable
power priority access to the grid, but a physical lack of grid
capacity has limited wind energy's ability to reach customers,
according to the Global
Wind Energy Council (GWEC).

Still, wind farms are expanding rapidly
across China. The National Development and Reform Commission (NDRC),
China's top economic planner, set a 2010 wind energy target of 5
GW, which the
country surpassed in 2007.

Wind energy supplied 12.2 GW of
installed capacity last year, about 0.4 percent of China's total
electricity supply. China announced in May that more than 100
GW of wind energy capacity will be installed by 2020
and that renewable energy will supply 40 percent of the energy market
by 2050.

The recent boost in wind production
dates to the passage of a 2005 renewable energy law. The policy
granted renewable energy providers with 10-year contracts and
guaranteed subsidies. The NDRC clarified the renewable energy law in
July by differentiating wind energy tariffs for various regions
throughout the country.

In an effort to stimulate the domestic
wind industry, the Chinese government also issued tax rebates last
year for state-owned wind turbine manufacturers. Of the 70 Chinese
manufacturers that produce wind turbines, more than 20 were formed
last year, according to the GWEC.